CITL Ribbon Cutting Celebrates New Home for Teaching Excellence at IU

Indiana University’s Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, newly co-located with the IU Libraries Department of Teaching and Learning on the second floor of the Herman B Wells Library at IU Bloomington, officially opened its doors October 30 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and reception. The event offered an opportunity for IU faculty and graduate students to explore the space, resources, services, and cutting-edge technology that the center provides in support of IU’s mission of teaching excellence. It featured remarks by IU Provost and Executive Vice President Lauren Robel, Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Brad Wheeler, and Ruth Lilly Dean of IU Libraries Brenda Johnson, as well as time-lapse video of the $1.25M relocation project.

The Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning was formed in 2010 as a comprehensive source of support for Indiana University instructors. A partnership between the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and University Information Technology Services, it provides leadership and expertise to enable innovation in curricula, implementation of powerful technologies and pedagogies in and beyond the classroom, and student engagement with learning resources and materials to promote critical analytic and research skills. CITL’s new location also capitalizes on its strategic partnership with IU Libraries’ Teaching and Learning Department.

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Sonya Stephens and Associate Vice President for Learning Technologies Anastasia Morrone designed the space to serve as a “one-stop shop” for university instructors, offering faculty and graduate students centralized access to every type of university resource available to enhance their teaching. This integration of university services follows IU’s strategic imperatives to increase and coordinate efforts in undergraduate education, and to implement partnerships that carry across multiple initiatives in areas such as curricular development, multidisciplinary collaboration, and innovative means of leveraging technology.

The new CITL space features a large, open collaborative consultation area with a mix of technology stations, tables and lounge seating; five private consultation rooms, three of which contain collaborative technology equipment; a 30-person workshop room with projection and video conferencing capabilities; a lending library of teaching and learning resources; and a collaborative workspace for 32 staff members as well as two director offices.

“The opportunities for innovative teaching and efficacious learning have never been more promising,” said Wheeler. “This center, located in the heart of the Bloomington campus, with a design influenced by the open plan of the Cyberinfrastructure Building, is a fitting space for effective faculty, staff, and student collaboration.”

CITL Space Renovation

CITL Director Greg Siering agreed that the new space is equally effective both in serving university teaching needs and promoting collaboration and innovation within the center.

“This space provides the ideal setting for CITL staff members to collaborate with each other and their faculty clients. We are already seeing that happen in a very concrete way as these teams come together in what is literally a teaching commons,” he said. “These collaborations serve the center’s ultimate goal of creating a vibrant space for faculty and student instructors. We want IU instructors to see this as their home for teaching on campus, not only to draw on our resources but also to utilize this space for their own collaborative teaching ventures.”

Co-locating CITL with IU Libraries’ Department of Teaching and Learning strengthens both units’ capacities for promoting information fluency, said Johnson.

“The Libraries share CITL’s goal of ensuring that IU students develop the skills to formulate meaningful questions and successfully navigate information resources,” she said. “We are jointly committed to providing faculty and graduate student instructors with everything they need to make their courses not only informative but also innovative, interactive, and inspiring. We have long been partners with CITL in pursuing these goals, and we are thrilled to now be able to collaborate in a shared space at the heart of the IU Bloomington campus.”

CITL’s new, strategically planned space reflects its centrality to the mission of Indiana University. By providing faculty and graduate student instructors with innovative tools for helping students achieving learning outcomes, CITL upholds the university’s core objective of disseminating knowledge. The Wells Library location not only offers new meeting spaces, workrooms, visualization tools and teleconferencing technology, but also immediate access to all the outstanding teaching and learning resources of the IU Libraries.